I Did It For You
by Daebereth
Summary: Follow on to I Will Stay Forever, 07verse. Jazz lingered after death to be with his mate, but what was the cost? PJ slash, character death.
1. I Did it For You

A/N -Glares furiously at Jazz- He just HAD to grab this song and ran with it, and made me write this. My Jazz muse is evil.

Song in question: Frozen, by Within Temptation.

Unbeta'd.

--

It was inevitable. All things end eventually, and so it was for Prowl. It happened as slowly as it did fast. He didn't know where the missile had come from, didn't see it until Sideswipe's frantic screaming had finally alerted him to the fact. It was too late by then.

There hadn't been any time to think before the world disappeared in a upwards waterfall of fire and pain.

It ended immediately and it stretched on forever, burning and curling into his armour, the eternal feeling of being ripped apart, scattered across the earth-face like metal hail.

Until, he was aware of a pair of arms wrapped around him, a slow movement of a single hand gently caressing the edge of his wings, and a fin-crested helm pressed against his neck. The sensations all came through the fire, pulsing like a spark-beat, until finally the flame abated completely, and there was just the other mech.

Just Jazz.

"S'alright, Prowler. I got ya. Keep coming this way. You ain't goin back the other, that's for sure." The amusement in his voice was trying its best to shuffle the sadness behind its back, and failing miserably.

"...what?" The words made perfect sense as words, but as a sentence, they seemed to be lacking in any meaning entirely. Go back... where?

"Ratchet's gonna be cursin your name a while. You literally went out with a bang – someone might think ya finally decided to take a page outta my book."

Oh, right. Dead.

And Prowl did the only thing that he could think of doing as that dawned on him – he grabbed Jazz and hugged him tightly to himself, revelling in the solid contact he'd so longed for all this time. The ghost touches, the liquid sand embrace, it couldn't compare to truly being able to hold his bondmate properly again.

Jazz laughed, the gentle stroke on Prowl's wings becoming more definite, more comforting. "Missed ya too, babe."

Prowl pulled back a little, resting his chevroned forehead against Jazz's, running a finger across the bar of glyphs crossing the smaller mech's face as he stared through the visor into the optics staring right back at him.

"I guess it had to happen sooner or later, huh?" Jazz asked, dragging a claw across Prowl's bumper, marvelling for the first time at the new armour that he was finally able to touch properly. "All good things come to an end."

"I've got you now," Prowl reminded him, leaning in to nuzzle against his cheek.

Jazz huffed a soft laugh. "Yeah. You ain't meant to stay here, though."

"...what?"

Jazz sighed and pulled back, throwing a half-grin at his mate. "On to the Matrix with ya, lover." Prowl nodded slowly, touching Jazz's forearm softly as he turned slightly, looking around curiously.

"Come on, then."

"Prowl," Jazz took his mate's hand, staring at the white fingers intently as he slowly rubbed them between his own. The former tactician watched the uncharacteristic frown on the silvery mech's face, the slight downturn of his lip components, the dimmed visor.

"Jazz?"

"I'm not going," the once-saboteur told Prowl's hand quietly. The spike of dread, feeling suspiciously like the wild jump of a spark he didn't actually have anymore, spread through Prowl like a cold wind.

"What do you mean, you're not going?" His hand tightened around Jazz's as the silver mech began to let him go, grasping him tightly. With his free hand, Jazz slid his visor back, meeting his lover's optics with his own.

"Can't go to the Matrix, Prowler. Kinda... kinda stuck here. Like this." That cold-wind dread turned to ice, solid and prickling with shards.

"I decided to come back, or as much as I could. That was my choice, and now I can't go _there._ Frozen in place, right here."

"Jazz..."

"S'alright, Prowl. _You'll_ be alright. Once you get there, you're just gonna join with the rest of them, won't remember a thing. You won't miss me, I promise."

"I'm not going without you," Prowl shook his head, grabbing at his mate's shoulders, determined not to let go. He couldn't let go.

A ghost of a smile, a mockery of Jazz's usual expression crossed the silvery one's face. "Aw, mech, you don't get a choice. That was part of the condition. We couldn't both stay." He watched those doorwings fall back, drawing flatter and lower than he'd ever seen them. As much as he wanted to remember the way they were usually held so high, the way they twitched in irritation or amusement, Jazz knew he would never forget the moment they had all but folded away.

Prowl searched those optics, looking so steadily back into his, shining with nothing more than the truth, nothing less than utter sorrow. "Why?"

"'Cos you were hurtin. I couldn't leave you like that. Couldn't just wander off into oblivion knowing that it wouldn't kill you, just slowly drive you insane." Jazz reached up to gently rub that bright red chevron, trying his best to soothe his distraught mate.

"Jazz..."

"You _would_ have. And I couldn't hurt ya like that." He wanted to impress the touch of the cool metal into his memory for the rest of forever, he decided, wanted to always remember the glint of light on the sharp ruby angles, stark against perfect black and white, contrasting against the glow of cerulean optics.

"And knowing that you're going to be stuck here forever, alone, because of _me_, I'm supposed to... to be able to live with that?"

"You won't remember it." He wanted to recall that smile, the one that was his and his alone, even though he knew he wasn't going to see it again.

"I won't let you just sacrifice everything."

"It's too late for that," Jazz cupped Prowl's face in his hands, holding his gaze, mapping the glow at the very centre, the hue of the bright flare. "Besides, I'd do it again if I got the choice. I'd give you anything. And now, I gotta let you go."

"No-"

"You're bein called, lover." Jazz slowly caressed Prowl's face with both hands, tracing every line, every glyph etched into the metal, pressing it all into his memory.

Prowl tightened his grip on the smaller mech's shoulder, and to his panic, found that his grasp passed straight through the silvery armour. Jazz was fading... no... _he_ was.

"Jazz!" he couldn't keep the distress from his voice, the wail from deep within.

"S'alright, I promise. Love ya, Prowl."

Jazz watched his mate's stricken expression fold into pure anguish, watched him try to touch him once again. Jazz lifted a hand to touch what he could not feel, wondering if this was how Prowl had felt all this time. White fingers aligned with silver, passing through each other, touching no more.

"I love you too." Prowl's voice was little more than a whisper, an idea in his processor, but it was there, and Jazz wrapped those words around his memories of this last moment, tucking them safely away. He grinned widely for his mate, claws twitching against rapidly clearing air. The last he saw was the glow of those beautiful blue optics, bright with sadness.

Jazz lowered his visor again, turning back to the other mechs left behind. They couldn't see him, wouldn't see him. No, he was here alone, with just the memories of what had been.

"Anything for you, lover," he murmured to a world that would never hear.


	2. You'll Always Be Mine

Disclaimer: They very much do not belong to me...

Is unbeta'd.

--

Jazz wandered around the medical staff, trying to see how they were faring, ignoring the cacophony of beeping and screeching of equipment that he couldn't understand anyway.

He thought it might have been Bluestreak on the berth, but he couldn't be sure. Although he could simply push his way past the other, corporeal mechs, being passed through was not something that he liked. Made him shudder, even though he couldn't really feel it. Processor over matter, he guessed. He imagined that it felt like someone touching your spark, in a clinical way, handling it with cold fingers and turning it around and putting it back in wrong.

A twinge of anxiety curled itself through his chassis, as he tried to peer around Ratchet's shoulder, darting back when the medic moved.

All this medical carry-on, he sighed to himself. How was a mech to understand what was going on? All he knew was that Ratchet wasn't swearing and that meant that things must be dire.

Bluestreak was going to deactivate.

Jazz fidgeted in the corner, giving up trying to see. The inevitable would happen whether or not he was hovering around. It wasn't as if he could make things any different, couldn't change the curse of whatever fate was about to hit.

Oh, Bluestreak. Perfect. Maybe this time he would manage to get in a whole conversation with someone this time. Decepticons never wanted to talk to him. They were always so damn suspicious, too busy yelling obscenities at him. Well, except for Dead End. He'd just morosely moped and disappeared before Jazz had had a chance to talk to him.

He cursed the irony to this day, that after all that abuse from deactivated Decepticons, the first time he simply hid, there'd been an agreeable one.

Jazz could already imagine the way the gunner's wings would be twitching as he looked about nervously, talking up a –

Wait, what? His head snapped up again, staring at Ratchet in shock as he backed away from the berth.

The one with the living mech on it.

He wasn't going to get to talk to anyone today.

Jazz howled in disappointment.

--

Something was wrong.

That was all he knew. Something was out of place, like a slightly loose wire at the back of his processor, niggling, forever niggling, just out of sight.

Prowl knew, inexplicably, that this thing that was out of place was simply wrong. After all, wasn't this the Matrix? He felt completely at peace with everything else that was, at being a part of the Well of Allsparks. His own designation no longer registered, nor did those of the others around him. They didn't know each other. They simply were, a gathering of all and everyone.

He supposed that it could be beautiful, this mass of sparks, all in harmony.

Except for that one discordant twinge, telling him that he wasn't _complete_. It was almost as if there was another half to his spark, somewhere.

Something very important was missing.

--

The small silver mech stood, staring up at the sky, watching the clouds pass overhead. They were as insubstantial as he was – he'd watched many things pass through them. Birds, Seekers, human planes. On occasion, the odd human who saw fit to do something that seemed somewhat akin to the Twin's jet judo, except that they were throwing themselves _from_ planes, rather than _at_ them.

Jazz wondered what that was like. Maybe he could be a cloud. He stretched up a little, but to his utter disappointment, he stayed right where he was.

Someone ran through him, followed by another someone, neither one of them noticing the once-saboteur standing listlessly in the pathway.

Maybe he was already a cloud.

Would a cloud feel the sun, he wondered, holding out a claw to the bright rays. He thought he could recall the sensation of warmth along his plating, once. Or had he made that up?

Someone else moved past him, and he turned, watching after them with longing optics.

"Hey, guys, do you know what..." but the other mech didn't stop.

With a sigh, Jazz tilted his head back up to the sky, to the clouds.

"Do you know what the sun feels like?"

--

He'd looked everywhere, and still that itch refused to still. There were no answers, no resounding responses to the strange calling in his spark. No matter where he went, or how hard he tried, he couldn't get comfortable.

Prowl wondered if he really could feel the discontent, that murmured through him as if a shiver, shuddering like a ripple through the others. Or if he was just hoping that he wasn't alone in that scratching uhappiness.

If he thought about it, about that desperate, unanswered summoning that drove through him, it felt like pain. Like a burning agony, of things ripped apart, of something silenced.

So, he tried to push the thought away, tried to forget it was there, waiting to be figured out. But, it wouldn't let him forget. It sat, just beyond his sight, taunting him with flashes of silver and a soft laugh, a gleaming 'v' of glass.

He thought about the silver dancing through his thoughts, finding only an ache, a longing that pulsed through him. If only he knew what it was he wanted so badly.

--

Mirage would have been more surprised by the weight that was suddenly clinging to him, if he didn't recognise the silver streak that had all but thrown itself at him.

"Jazz?"

"The leaves, have you seen them, Raj? They're _orange_. Means its autumn, or something, humans say."

The once spy stared, and shook his head, trying to recall what- Oh. That's right... Jazz had been deactivated a long time ago. Which meant... The blue and white mech shuttered his optics a few times in quick succession. Oh.

"... and it really shouldn't!" Mirage caught the tail end of Jazz's ecstatic babbling, focusing on the silver mech again, the one still clinging to his frame like a lost sparkling.

"Jazz, why are you still here?"

"I gotta stay," was the sad response. "Gotta wait here."

"For what?" Mirage questioned, raising his hand to dislodge the saboteur and then pausing, wondering if he really should.

"For forever." This time, Mirage did wriggle out of his previously-superior's grasp so that he could fix a proper glare on him, giving a small start at the whine that came from the silver mech, low and unhappy.

"What do you mean _forever_?"

Jazz sighed, lowering his gaze to the ground. "Made a deal, and this is the price, gotta wait here forever. Don't be making deals, 'Raj, they're bad for you. Kind of like this extra high high-grade. Seems like a good idea at the time and then... 'Raj?"

Jazz's head came back up in time to behold the fading Mirage, still staring back at him, optics bright with disbelief.

"Jazz?"

"Mirage! No, no, don't... don't go!" he tried to grab onto the spy, and failing, with a moan of distress.

"Jazz!"

--

Prowl felt a sense of familiarity wash through his being as the new spark furled into the Matrix, right before the feeling was erased, easing simply into his spark and settling like dust.

Mirage. Spy.

And then, nothing.

Except, for a single thought that the mech brought with him, one last fleeting, panicked thought from the other side, the shout shuddering through them all, discarded by the others and yet...

_Jazz_.

Prowl paused, letting that thought, that name seep through him, jerking in surprise at the flood of memory that came with it. And suddenly that niggle at the back of his processor tingled away with a sigh of contentment. This name, these memories were the missing piece.

A sense of love, complete and total, filling every fibre of his spark, curling warmly through his being.

A silver mech, cheeky, grinning, visor slipping up to reveal mischievous optics, before hiding them away again.

An easy voice, musical to hear, sometimes (often!) teasing. Somtimes harsh words, arguments, hurt, and yet... taken in greedily with the good. All of it, he took in all of it.

Because he remembered.

_Jazz. _

His Jazz.

And then it finally snapped. Jazz wasn't _here_.

--

Jazz placed on claw over the designation written into the mausoleum's wall, wishing that he could maybe feel the engraving, trace those symbols of the designation that was worked into his spark.

_Prowl_.

Slowly, he turned, sinking to sit ungracefully on the ground, hugging his arms to himself, holding tight the ache that throbbed through him. He let out a little whimper, filling that single keening sound with every ounce of his lonliness, wishing that someone would answer it, anyone.

And when no-one did, he simply hugged himself tighter, head bowed a little lower as he looked at the ground, staring into the spaces between the grains of sand.

Feet stopped before him, and Jazz tilted his head back, slowly looking upwards. And there he was, standing there, right before him, head tilted slightly to the side in consideration, pale optics showing nothing but love and sadness, wings flared out.

His very own angel.

Jazz smiled a little, imagining for just a moment that it really was his Prowl, before turning away with a sigh. "Heya Prowler. Back again. You know, 'Raj went this way not too long ago, ya missed him." "Yes, I know," was his soft reply.

"And it didn't rain like you said it would. I been watching those clouds for a whole earth week. Not a drop. Kinda wish it would. I can sort of feel the rain sometimes."

He didn't see Prowl's wings fold back, just drew his knees up against him, resting his chin against them as he continued to contemplate the earth.

"Jazz... it's time to go."

"Heh, that's what ya said that one time, ya remember? We never found a way off the planet," he started to snicker, eventually breaking out into a rage of giggles.

"Remember it, right?" he asked, nudging Prowl's knee joint with one foot. "And then Ratchet started really swearing the world to the pit, cos he thought everything was breaking. Twins got it hard that day."

Prowl watched as Jazz's manic giggling ceased and he began to concentrate on the ground beside his knee, trying to trace random little symbols in the dirt, all of it nonsensical, and then making as if to scrub them out again in irritation.

"I want to go home," he said suddenly, looking down at his own claws, splayed in the earth. Prowl's wings dropped even further at the sound of misery in his mate's voice, the empty resignation.

"I want my Prowl," the saboteur continued, tone becoming staticy with longing, hitching with anguish as a sob escaped his vocaliser. "I want to see him again."

Prowl dropped to his knees beside the smaller mech, reaching out to draw him close. He had barely touched his arm when Jazz latched on, clinging to him with a desperate determination as his spark-wrenching keening filled the air around them.

"Oh, Jazz," Prowl wrapped him up tightly, rubbing the sensitive fins on the silver helm gently. The saboteur continued to shudder against him, chassis wracked with sobs.

"I just want to go home. Home, back to _my _Prowl. I went away, and then he left and now we're gone and I just want him _back_," he rambled on, voice barely discernable through the static. "He's gone, Prowl, my Prowl is gone. I let him go and he's gone."

"I _am_ back, Jazz. I'm right here."

"Prowl?" Jazz drew back suddenly, trembling. "Prowler? Ya really... ya really here?"

"Yes, you silly, _silly_ mech," he told him affectionately, moving to push back the visor and meet those staring, searching blue optics, tracing the line of glyphs beneath the glowing blue. "I can't be without you, Jazz."

The smaller mech reached up, pulling his mate just a little closer, leaning golden helm-crest against silver and just staring, drowning in blue. And, for the first time in so very long, longing eased as two sparks finally sought each other, agony petering out into contentment.

"Time to go home, Jazz."

--

A/N, for those who have asked: The way I saw it, every spark makes up the essence of Primus, so he's not exactly going to want to be letting them go whimsically, hence Prowl wasn't given the choice. And Jazz, as a deterrent to ensure that this isn't something everyone does on a regular basis, had to pay a price.

Just how Prowl got this one sorted out, I leave to you. Probably by pointing out that those two points I made above aren't exactly logical together.

As for not remembering, well, there's dual factions in there. This is meant to be final peace, so let's take it _all_ away. It might also be the fault of the lyrics I was writing to.


End file.
